Wednesday, January 12, 1994
Daily Nebraskan
I) kb Mcadams
Memphis motel stirs emotions
Just around the comer from the
boiling blues of Beale Street,
boarded windows and graffiti
scribbled walls share a Memphis
neighborhood with renovated front
ages and spruce-colored miniblinds.
In the midst of this lukewarm rede
velopment is a Formica-yellow build
ing straight out of the Jetsons. Time is
frozen at 450 Mulberry St., where Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. spent his last
night on Earth.
King may have celebrated his 65th
birthday this Saturday had he not
stepped onto the balcony of Room
306 at the Lorraine Motel on April 4,
1968. But he did step outside, and as
he visited with Jesse Jackson in the
parking lot below, rifle fire ripped
into King’s face and out through his
spinal cord. The man with a dream
and four children was dead at age 39.
The Lorraine Motel is now the site
of the National Civil Rights Museum.
There’s a ticket booth where the front
desk may have been. Immediately
behind the ticket booth is a large, open
foyer housing a room-size sculpture
of a mountain. Hundreds of small,,
human figures form a line that spirals
around the mountain, each one help
ing the next to climb another step. The
faces are intentionally black.
In a small, dark room past the
foyer, a temporary exhibit dedicated
to Malcolm X was displayed. Bom
Malcolm Little in Omaha on May 19,
1925, his life was shadowed by vio
lence and enigma. Malcolm Little
lost his father to a violent mob. As
“Detroit Red,” he went to Charleston
State Prison for robbery. At Charles
ton, he cursed Christianity so vehe
mently that other inmates called him
“Satan.” Soon, “Satan” found Allah
and became Malcolm X.
His memorial at the National Civil
Rights Museum was a collage ofblunt
video images and shotgun bursts of
his angry, booming voice calling for
separation. It leaves a visitor disturbed
r
Those visitors are black, white,
Asian and Hispanic. Some are
probably unaware, curious and
maybe skeptical, but all leave
Room 306 in silence. _
and uncertain, as did the man.
The main hall of the museum hous
es a collection that tells the story of a
revolution. As revolutions go, ordi
nary people behaved with extraordi
nary courage.
A 42-year-old, soft-spoken seam
stress refused to give up her bus seat
to a man who happened to be white. A
year later, the buses of the Montgom
ery, Ala., public transportation sys
tem were desegregated.
A combat veteran of World War II
returned from Normandy to die in
Jackson, Miss., fighting for his right
to vote and to buy his lunch wherever
he chose.
In Topeka, Kan., the father of an 8
year-old girl hired a lawyer when the
child was denied access to an elemen
tary school five blocks from their
home. Nearly five years later, the
Supreme Court directed states to end
public school segregation “with all
deliberate speed.”
At the top of the steps, Room 306 is
preserved under glass. Two beds, like
the ones that Ralph Abernathy and Dr.
King slept in on the night of April 3,
1968, sit behind a plate glass wall.
The beds are unmade, and a couple of
coffee cups sit nearby. Immediately
to the left are the sliding glass doors
leading to the balcony.
There are no bloodstains on the
balcony anymore. There are no overt
signs of violence. There is only the
audible wave of grief that passes
through the visitors as they compre
hend where they are standing.
Those visitors are black, white,
Asian and Hispanic. Some are proba
bly unaware, curious and maybe skep
tical, but all leave Room 306 in si
lence.
Twenty-six years after King’s
death, our society has become mar
ginally tolerant, but we have not elim
inated the philosophy of bigotry. We
continue to hammer a gavel at preju
dice instead of trying to understand its
roots in fear and inferiority.
A bright, young student eager to go
to college in his home state attended
his first day of classes at the Univer
sity of Mississippi accompanied by
federal marshals and the National
Guard.
Rosa Parks, Mcdgar Evers,
Thurgood Marshall and James
Meredith were among the ordinary
people who demanded human digni
ty, and in doing so, they changed the
behavior of a society.
The main hall of the museum gives
way to a stairway lined with photos of
protest marches and peaceful sit-ins.
As long as we direct our govern
ment to value power structures in
stead of families and children, the
poor and uneducated will be with us.
Until those of us who are able use our
influence to alleviate the degradation
of poverty, fear and inferiority will
plague our citizens, and hate and vio
lence will infect our neighborhoods.
McAdams Is a junior news-editorial ma
jor and a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
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